For decades, archaeologists and historians have debated explanations for the socio-cultural transitions that occurred throughout much of the Near East around the turn of the 2nd millennium BC. One culture-historical explanation that was popularized more than half a century ago is cultural diffusion via mass migration, particularly of the Amorites, an ambiguous population whom some consider responsible for initiating and spreading Middle Bronze Age culture. Although today’s scholarly consensus has, in the main, departed from such perspectives, the spectre of the Amorites persists. The present work scrutinizes the textual and material records upon which assumptions of Amorite ethnicity and shared material culture are based. Based on a longue dureé contextual approach to the archaeological record, we test the problematic Amorite Hypothesis and underlying assumptions. We argue for mainly long-term indigenous trajectories toward social complexity from the perspective of the southern Levant.

中文翻译：

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亚摩利问题：解决历史困境

几十年来，考古学家和历史学家一直在争论关于公元前 2 世纪之交近东大部分地区发生的社会文化转变的解释。半个多世纪前流行的一种文化历史解释是通过大规模迁移进行的文化传播，特别是亚摩利人，这是一个模棱两可的人口，有人认为他们负责发起和传播中世纪青铜时代文化。尽管今天的学术共识大体上偏离了这种观点，但亚摩利人的幽灵依然存在。目前的工作仔细审查了亚摩利人种族和共享物质文化的假设所依据的文本和物质记录。基于对考古记录的长期上下文方法，我们测试有问题的亚摩利假设和基本假设。我们主要从黎凡特南部的角度论证了土著社会复杂性的长期轨迹。